County Line

by Bill Cameron

  “Sure. She said she tried to get my phone number, but all I have these days is my cell. Lucky for her I had to come back to meet with a realtor.”

  “You’re selling the house?”

  “Times change. My bridge loan is due, and work has gone south. If I can’t sell, I’ll lose everything I put into this joint.”

  “What do you do?”

  “Construction. Residential and small commercial. But, shit, the whole damn market is falling apart. I haven’t made my nut in over a year.”

  “You built this place?”

  He takes a moment. When he speaks, his voice is wistful. “Yeah. Just in time to not be able to get a damn mortgage to pay for it. It’s all drying up, and here I am living on a guy’s couch a hundred and fifty miles from home so I can work at half wages doing demos on burn-and-turn remodels.”

  Nash claps him on the shoulder. “It’ll come around, Ray.” He tries to sound confident, but Malo shakes his head.

  “Gonna get a whole lot worse before it gets better, Werth. You watch. Those Wall Street bastards done fucked the whole planet.” Malo gazes up at the house, his expression both proud and melancholy. I look away, an uncomfortable witness to loss. A breeze rustles the trees next to the driveway, and when a breath of cooler air drops down among us the chief stirs. “You want to show us what you showed Ruby?”

  Malo blinks. “Sure. Follow me.” He leads us past the oversized garage along a flagstone path. The checkerboard sod is a month of good rain from being a showcase lawn. He and Nash move at a pace I struggle to keep up with. Malo talks as he walks. “She was waiting at the end of the driveway when I drove up yesterday. Must have been noon or thereabouts. Introduced herself. Said she used to live nearby, remembered the old woods.” He gives a breathy laugh. “Not the word I’d use for a bunch of rotted out hickories and black maples. I cleared the bulk of it when I bought the lot.”

  “How much?”

  “Six and a half acres. There’s a couple of places down the way, built back in the 70s. They’re on big lots too. We like our breathing room, I guess.”

  “When did you start construction?”

  “Last summer. Dug the basement and laid in the foundation last June.”

  “It’s a nice looking place.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Behind the house, the lawn dips toward a brook which runs into the woods at the back of the property. Birds calling in the trees punctuate the trickling water. A large brush pile is at the edge of the trees, beside it a metal shed with firewood stacked on either side. Wood chips surround the axe-scarred stump in front of the shed.

  “Little by little I been reducing the brush to firewood. Got about six cords laid up so far. Probably never use it. Werth, you want some, let me know.”

  “Maybe things will still work out.”

  “Shit ain’t gonna work out. You take it. I don’t want some goddamn stock broker to have it.”

  He stalks over to the shed, unlocks the padlock on the door. The hinges squeal when he throws wide the double doors. He has to duck to step inside. Nash and I follow. I have plenty of head room.

  Shelves on the sides and back are loaded with tools, some I recognize, many I don’t: a pair of chainsaws, one bigger than the other, and an axe. A group of splitting wedges, a maul and a couple of sledge hammers.

  “I never got around to moving this stuff into the garage. Not much point now.” It’s like listening to a man talk about a dead lover.

  He reaches up to a high shelf and pulls down a pair of metal toolboxes. Unlike everything else in the shed, the boxes are rusty and battered. I make out a patch of paint here and there, red on one, dark blue on the second. Malo carries the toolboxes outside into the sunlight and sets them on the chopping block.

  “Here you go.”

  “This is what you showed her?

  “Yeah. After she introduced herself, she asked what I knew about the construction. When I told her I’d built the damn place she asked if I’d found anything unusual. These turned up when we were digging the foundation for the garage.”

  Nash kneels down next to the stump to inspect the toolboxes more closely. “You say she knew what you found?”

  “When I mentioned the toolboxes, she nodded like it was the most obvious thing in the world and asked if there was anything else.”

  “Was there?”

  “Just a gun.”

  Nash and I both grow still. Malo looks at each of us in turn, then bursts out laughing, his first sign of mirth since he drove up.

  “I knew that’d get ya.”

  “What kind of gun?”

  He joins Nash and pries one of the boxes open. Inside is a rusty tray filled with corroding chrome wrenches. He lifts out the tray. On top of a pile of what appears to be scrap metal is an old pistol. A revolver. The surface is ruddy and cratered, the cylinder and hammer both fused to the frame. The trigger is gone, the trigger guard and grips all but rotted away.

  I catch Nash’s eye. We’re both thinking the same thing. Ruby Jane, walking down the road on a rainy night, covered in mud. Nash is the first to speak.

  “She wanted to see this?”

  Malo nods. “Yep. She asked me to open each one, and she went through it all. Most of the tools are ruined, and you can see the condition the gun is in.”

  “I’m surprised you kept this around.”

  “I know. It’s interesting, I guess. Couple of old tool boxes and a gun buried out here? Made me wonder.”

  “What did Ruby say?”

  “She asked if there was anything else in the toolboxes.”

  “Was there?”

  “What you see.”

  “Did she take anything with her?”

  “Nope.”

  I pick up one of the wrenches. It’s not in bad shape, not much worse than my own neglected set back home. The chromed-vanadium steel held up better than the toolboxes themselves. I turn the wrench over in my hand. The letters DW are etched mid-handle. I show it to Nash. He nods.

  “Weird shit, eh, boys?” Malo has cheered up a bit. Maybe contemplating a mystery is letting him put aside his own troubles for a moment.

  I nod. “Weird shit.”

  Nash asks Malo to hang on to the toolboxes for a while, just in case. Just in case what, I dunno. They chat for a few minutes while Malo returns everything to the shed. I walk up toward the house, gazing into the trees to either side of the broad lot. I try to imagine what it must have been like twenty years before, the darkness, the rain. Ruby Jane out here alone and digging a hole to bury a couple of boxes of hand tools and a gun.

  Back in the car, Nash drives toward town. “What are you thinking, Chief?”

  “You gotta wonder what she hoped to find.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  “Something small enough to fit in an old toolbox.”

  I’ve got the old case file in my hand again. I raise it. “An emerald ring is small enough to fit in a toolbox.”

  “It wasn’t there.”

  “You know Malo. I don’t.”

  “It wasn’t there. I guarantee you that.”

  “Okay.”

  “I know. You gotta ask.”

  “If it wasn’t there yesterday, and it wasn’t there when Malo dug it up last summer, it wasn’t in there twenty years ago either.”

  “What changed to bring her back now?”

  “Chase Fairweather.”

  “The dead guy?”

  “Dale Whittaker.”

  He turns onto Chicken Bristle Road.

  “That ID should be confirmed. Dale’s prints will be in the system somewhere. He got arrested often enough.”

  “I’ll call Mulvaney.”

  “No. I will. I’m the police officer here.”

  “I have an interest in this.”

  “Not saying you don’t. Just saying you don’t get to do my job.”

  With that, a shroud of gloom fills the car as we drive back toward Farmersville. Out there looking at those old toolboxes, it
had been easy to forget the two dead men and the hit-and-run which almost killed two more. Ruby Jane was still in the wind. I scan the road, as if we’ll pass her out for another run. Eleven miles, medium run, Tuesdays and Fridays. But she’s moved on. I’ve lost track of the days, lost track of where I am. I feel blown off course, scattered by circumstance. Chase Fairweather’s inconvenient corpse. Jimmie and Pete. Now Nash sits silent beside me. I suspect his thoughts reflect my own. What happened out here in the woods on that rainy night so long ago?

  The lack of answers is an ache in my chest.

  “You’ve done good work here, Chief.”

  “For a small town cop, even.”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  He waves a hand. “I know, I know.” He takes a breath through his nose. “Just … you know.”

  “At a wall.”

  “And then some.” I know how he feels. He leans forward, looks through the windshield, gestures side to side. “You should see some of the things we find in the fields around here. Dirtbags from Miami to Detroit think the countryside is their dumping ground. I’ve cleared drug murders which had their origins in Colombia.”

  He falls silent and the fields go by.

  “You’ll clear this one too, Chief.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.”

  He’s frustrated. I don’t blame him. In a way, I’m lucky. I can keep chasing this wherever it leads. But he’s limited to his jurisdiction. His hit-and-run could very well be solved in another time zone, if it’s solved at all.

  “When we get back to the station, you can write up your statement, call your rental car company. Whatever you need to do. Then Mackenzie or someone will drive you to the airport.”

  “I could stick around another day or so.”

  “Mister Kadash, you and me both know she’s gone.”

  I wish I knew where to look next.

  - 45 -

  Rotten Pear

  I catch a flight to Dallas, then get bumped from my Portland connection to a redeye with a change in Los Angeles. Middle seat both legs. On top of the inflated, last minute fare, the sweatshirt I buy to blunt the edge of the hyper-chilled Terminal A atmosphere sets me back seventy-five bucks. I nurse a seven-dollar beer in a bar near the gate while I wait, then another when thunderstorms delay takeoff. It’s just money. In LA, I have to sprint to make my connection. By the time I step out into the cool, rainy Portland morning—fifteen hours after Mackenzie left me at the Dayton airport—I’m glassy-eyed and adrift, too tired to do more than stumble to the taxi line. For a moment I forget my own address, which earns me a quizzical look from my Russian cab driver. He laughs at me when I try to give him directions, then drops me half a block from my house for reasons I can’t comprehend. I drag my ass to the front door, grateful I still have my keys.

  Inside, a fusty odor confronts me. A fog of fruit flies boils over the coffee table. The pear and a yellow scab of desiccated cheddar decays on the plate where I left it. I kick a week’s worth of mail across the floor. Despite the clutter and the bugs, I take comfort in the pictures lined up on the mantle beneath the old mirror with the gilded frame, my mismatched furniture, the books in the built-ins. I drop my keys on the dining table and plug in my cell phone on the sideboard, then make my way to my bedroom. My big plan is to shower, eat, and then hunt for Bella Whittaker. Maybe see about my car if I’m feeling ambitious.

  Planting my ass on the edge of my bed is as far as I get.

  When I wake up, the light has changed and I’m being strangled by my sling. I glance at the clock. It’s after eight—in the evening, I assume. Someone is banging on the front door.

  “Christ, calm down.” I don’t suppose whoever it is can hear me muttering to myself. In my sleep, I must have kicked off my shoes. I stumble barefoot through the house and throw open the door. It’s Susan.

  “Hello, Skin. Got a minute?”

  There’s a film over my eyes. “I guess.”

  I let her pass. She’s been smoking. The scent follows her to the couch where she turns. She doesn’t smile, doesn’t frown. Her only expression is a slight narrowing of her eyebrows, sign she’s got something on her mind. Her cords and blue blazer fit her like a uniform. In contrast, I must look a sight. Wrinkled airport sweatshirt, twisted sling, stocking feet.

  “What’s going on?”

  She regards me with her deep green eyes, then takes a seat on the couch. “You look like hell.”

  “I was up all night having an act of air travel committed against me.”

  “I hate flying.”

  Her eyes drift to the flies. I offer her a sheepish smile and grab the plate. “Give me a minute, okay?”

  “Take your time.”

  I put the plate in the kitchen sink. In the bathroom, a splash of cold water washes some of the pallor from my flesh and a wet comb cuts through the bedraggle on my head. Fresh clothing is trickier. My shoulder has stiffened up. I groan as I wrestle free of the sweatshirt and Here’s To Health! I want a shower, but settle for a clean t-shirt and jeans. Tying my Rockports is too much for me, but I find an old pair of slip-ons which have been in the closet for a decade.

  I return through the kitchen for Advil and two glasses of water. Susan has turned on the lamp at the end of the couch. She looks tan and healthy in the dim yellow light. The skin of my hands appears jaundiced in comparison. In my absence, she gathered my mail into a tidy stack on the coffee table. She sets her glass on a coaster from a set Ruby Jane bought me.

  “I talked with Chief Nash.”

  “He have anything new?”

  “He still doesn’t know who hit you.” She studies me for a moment. “He asked me to check on you.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “How’s your arm?”

  I skipped the sling after dressing. My arm hangs awkwardly at my side. It hurts to shrug, so I sit in the chair across from her. “You didn’t drive over here to check up on me for Chief Nash.”

  “I came over to tell you Chase Fairweather was murdered.”

  The news leaves me indifferent, but I don’t know if it’s because I’ve lost my capacity for surprise or because I somehow knew his death was not the inevitable end to a long period of declining health. Given everything else, Fairweather’s passing has taken on the status of mere curiosity, a blip on a radar screen bright with worrisome and confusing tracks.

  Susan takes a sip of water. “After James Whitacre and your hit-and-run, I asked the medical examiner to take another look at Fairweather. You remember Dan Halley?”

  “Sure.” A fellow with an excess of bluster—lousy poker player, but a competent medical examiner.

  “Fairweather suffered from dangerously elevated blood sugar and dehydration. From there, without treatment, a number of negative outcomes follow.”

  “Dead would count as a negative outcome. What makes you think it was murder?”

  “Dan examined Fairweather’s belongings again. The low dose aspirin and insulin got his attention.”

  “Someone tampered with his meds?

  “My question exactly. Dan said Fairweather’s insulin was fine, but the aspirin was another matter. There are dozens of store brands, all a little different.”

  “Let me guess. Sugar pills.”

  “The entire bottle.”

  I grunt. “Don’t you take one a day? That can’t be enough to kill a guy, no matter how sick he was.”

  “Hyperosmolar coma can develop over several days. Fairweather wasn’t doing much to take care of himself and probably didn’t recognize his symptoms. Dan suspects he was also using the aspirin for pain relief. If he took a handful before he got in the tub, his blood sugar could have spiked and pushed him into coma. Lying against hard porcelain for a while might have caused a blood clot to form in his leg. Next step: pulmonary embolism and death.”

  “Autopsy?”

  “I’ve requested a full post-mortem.”

  For a case like this, having Halley do a second review of the evidence was already a
sking a lot. But Susan is the lieutenant. She’ll probably get her autopsy.

  “And that’s why you say he was murdered.”

  “Someone switched his aspirin for sugar pills.”

  “Maybe he took them on purpose.”

  “Suicide? Why bother with sugar pills? They’re not hard to get, but the sugar canister in Ruby Jane’s cupboard was more convenient.”

  “What’s your theory?”

  She licks her lips and shrugs, drinks again. The clock on the VCR reads 8:44. Susan would have awoken with the birds. Long day. As a rule a lieutenant doesn’t have a lot of time for follow-up visits with witnesses, even on a suspicious death. That’s what detectives are for. She must be tired, but the only evidence is in the long silences between thoughts and the shadows under her eyes. I look at her sitting there on my couch, not smiling, not frowning, and it occurs to me I no longer miss being a cop. The grief, the rules, the endless reports. Detective Kadash would have been obligated to follow up with Marcy on her comment about how Chase Fairweather tried to get Ruby Jane to pay for his medicine. Skin Kadash the citizen can keep his goddamn mouth shut.

  Susan meets my gaze. A fleeting shame runs through me, as though she can read my thoughts, but it passes the moment Susan looks away to set her glass on the table.

  “I spoke with Inspector Eldridge. They’re still looking for Biddy Denlinger.”

  I take a drink of my own water and wish I’d brushed my teeth when I washed my face. “And?”

  “They assume Biddy is a nickname.”

  “One would hope.”

  “They’ve been through Jimmie’s personal files and his computer. Aside from that one note in his Filofax, there’s nothing else about Biddy.” Susan folds her hands in her lap. The sun has set and out the windows on either side of the mantle twilight is fading. “Skin, what has Ruby Jane told you about Bella Denlinger?”

  “Bella? Ruby Jane’s mother Bella?”

  “Denlinger is her maiden name. You didn’t know?”

  “No one knows.”

  “James was in touch with her, based on correspondence SFPD found.”

  “Who’s Biddy, then? A relative?”

  “Unknown.”